As someone in a long distance friendship since 2020, I’d say quarantine prepared me well for my best friend and I so far apart — the first time we would attend two different schools since the fourth grade. Two years into it, I’d even say we’ve adjusted greatly. Some weeks we’ll FaceTime each other every day. Other times, two weeks will go by without a call. But that’s the thing about having a best friend — we always return to pick up exactly where we left off.
Over the past two years, my best friend and I have tried almost everything to stay up-to-date on each other’s lives as much as possible, and social media has played a huge role in this. Using everything from private VVIP Snapchat stories to Netflix Party, we’ve relied heavily on technology to keep seeing each other’s faces, especially as we don’t sit next to each other in AP Literature anymore.
This is where BeReal comes into play.
BeReal is a newer social media app that has been trending for the last couple of months. It’s now been about a month since my friends and I have been using it, and it can definitely be described as a social media experience like no other.
The photo-sharing app will send out one notification a day to all of its users, giving them only two minutes to upload a picture. When taking a selfie, the app will simultaneously take a picture of its surroundings using the back camera, capturing both your current face and environment. The timer will count down as you scramble for a shot, hardly enough time to examine or edit your picture before sharing it with your friends.
The premise of BeReal is what sets it apart from other photo-sharing apps like Snapchat or Instagram, which personally, I feel like has become more like a chore these days. By giving hardly enough time to examine or edit your picture, the app encourages users to share an honest moment with their friends — one that is not polished and purposeful, but genuine.
While you can post later in the day if you miss the original time, you can’t see your friends’ posts until your own is uploaded. You can react to other posts with comments or your own picture, a feature called the RealMoji. The discovery tab will also share with users public pictures from all over the world, giving them a glance into many others’ lives at the very same time.
There’s no time for posing and sending the picture to your friends to make sure you chose the right one. I personally like to keep my circle on BeReal small — just my closest friends. I think I can enjoy it because it’s a social media app that feels easy and comfortable, a harmless look at the real you throughout random times in the day.
In a long distance friendship, this is what we want the most — to see our friend’s face, know that they’re doing well. Most of the time, BeReal will catch me in between classes, making my own shots with a masked face and my legs in motion on Commonwealth Avenue. But still, my best friend never fails to react in real time, reminding me she misses me with her RealMoji or a quick comment. And I like to see her in action throughout her day too — feet on Locust Walk at the University of Pennsylvania, 300 miles away.
